to be surprised that a scientist with a doctorate is religious

[Margaritapracataz]

I assumed she was joking, but no she's a very intelligent woman (double first) but she has deeply religious beliefs.

Aibu to think this is a bit strange and to think less of her professionally?

'deep religious belief' doesn't necessarily mean that you belive in a man with a beard in the sky.
YABU

It's true that my Christian friend is very relaxed about the "rules" of Christianity and interprets it to suit her. For her it's about a personal sense of a God that she has a relationship with, and a requirement to behave well towards other people. I do find that easier to respect because, while I don't see any evidence for a god, it's about her feelings and a moral code that's inherently philanthropic. It's not about following some rules in an old book about not having sex before marriage etc. and going to hell if you don't obey. Religion does come in a very wide spectrum. But there are many people around who are at the other, very literal end of things. (In other religions as well as Christianity.)

I did my PhD at the same time as someone from a Mormon family who did not believe in Evolution but she would still use phylogenetic trees of the proteins she worked with for her research

For the non-scientists, "phylogenetic trees" are schematic maps that indicate the evolutionary relationship between different organisms. We use them to see when species diverged from each other, where family groups occur etc

How does a brain cope with that? This really cuts to the heart of the OP, I think.

You have a person who is presumably technically competent to perform "science". But she is thinking, "This is shit, what a load of bollocks....". I don't get it.

I do take exception to the idea that religion is the source of morality.

Many religions do teach forgiveness, love and peace but they also teach a load of arbitrary rules (like you can't be gay, or eat shellfish or whatever) that have nothing to do with treating other people well.

The foundation of morality is treating other people well and mutual support so as to ensure the survival of a social species. Organised religions may reflect that but because they originate out of a need for control and power, they also involve lots of other totally meaningless "moral" rules and punishments.

Computer programming doctorate here and a Catholic. Not a creationist (don't think there's many of those about tbh), I work with people of faith and people of none and we respect each other. fWIW I work with a lot of Muslims & have never until this moment thought to question their academic qualifications based on their faith

I don't think computer programming is the sort of area where you'd expect to see a clash really is it?

(Admits to extreme ignorance of what a computer programming doctorate consists of!)

I don't think people who are deeply religious are less intelligent but I do instinctively think that they are more judgemental than others. For instance I once worked with a pastoral manager in a non-faith secondary who uttered the line "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve" in defence of her homophobic views. Oh how I judged.

Incidentally my mother was a doctor and is a Catholic, I have a harder time reconciling her views as she is a woman than a scientist.

She is actually a very good biochemist maidofstars but she wouldn't join in a discussion about early evolution which is a central point of interest in the field (Archaea and extreme microbes) we were all working in. She focused purely on function of her enzymes.

YANBU.

I feel that a belief in any kind of "personal god" or "loving being/life guide", (as opposed to some sort of force of nature which has no emotion or judgement), shows a lack of logic and is a weakness in someone's mental capabilities.

I wouldn't laugh at someone for having such beliefs, but I would be a bit disappointed/less impressed by them if I found out that they were religious/spiritual.

I equate religious beliefs with thinking fairies exist, or that alien abductions are real or that astrology is true etc. And I really wouldn't want to be married to someone with such an irrational belief.

I do not want to have to respect anyone's "faith", as where do we draw the line at respecting irrational beliefs? (Why not respect any/all kinds of made-up beliefs then, as believing in a god has no basis in science?)

The main religions we are conditioned to unquestioningly accept/respect today are just historical, cultural nonsense beliefs which haven't yet died out. And these are not any more true than other beliefs which are no longer current/fashionable.

There are, of course, many (older) religions/beliefs which used to be very strongly held/respected/fought for, but which are no longer 'current'. These 'extinct' religions/belief systems just prove the faulty logic in all religious beliefs, as they can't ALL be correct? And, more logically, none of them are true, as none has more 'evidence' than any other? (Some are just 'nicer' than others in today's cultural context?)

We all have our achilles heal, mentally/emotionally speaking. (Me included.) I think having "a faith/religion" is just one of these 'chinks' in our emotional armour, and I am glad I am free of that particular one.

Of course, most 'believers', (but not all), are nice ppl. But most will have been educated (ie brainwashed) to believe when very young, with the importance of 'faith' will have been emphasised, (as opposed to any real evidence), and maybe augmented by a hard-to-pin-down (ie verify) significant personal event, which someone can mis-understand and take as a religious experience? (Such things as a coincidence, a hallucination or just a vague 'weird feeling'? All fairly normal to the human condition and to be taken as 'signs' of a 'god'?)

Young children are very open/vulnerable, so it seems mean to me to force-feed them religious beliefs, (as truths), because it is harder for them to resist than when say adolescents. (The majority of believers will automatically follow the religion of their family/tribe for the reason that they were indoctrinated at a young age and feel bad to go against their family/tribe.)

When kids 'believe' there is a monster under the bed, what do we tell them? (If we encouraged them, they might grow up to be convinced the monster under the bed is real ... just invisible, mystical and unknowable?)

Some adults, (like me), reject their childhood religion once they think about it in detail. (And I feel the better for it.) But other adults will seek out 'a new belief', I guess to fit in to a new group or when feeling in need of some reassurance/love/tribal belonging/life meaning.

I would not like to be cruel in taking away someone's emotional 'crutch', (ie religous beliefs), but I also do not want to accept what they believe might be true. And it would worry me that someone can be so easily persuaded to believe something as important as that without any actual evidence could also be effective as a scientist or as 'a thinker'.

Cos religion is all just "make-believe". And intelligent people normally reject make-believe once they have grown up? (Well that's just my opinion of course!)

That was long.

MaidOfStars, the brain has a fascinating array of tricks to keep out evidence that conflicts with a previously held belief, there's a whole book in there.

But the Mormon geneticist is probably just using the mental tactic of deciding that God created the evidence that points to the lack of God, like Christians that believe God planted dinosaur bones to fool scientists.
Just decide that God created these proteins in a way that makes it look like they evolved sequentially, and ta-da! Troubling issue solved.

For me "the Kingdom of Heaven" isn't somewhere we all get transported to when we die, where everyone is dressed in white and floating around. It is something that could potentially be created here during our earthly lives if we humans were fully able to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Or just be humane to each other, pernaps, which would appeal to all religions and none, not just Christianity.

Just decide that God created these proteins in a way that makes it look like they evolved sequentially, and ta-da! Troubling issue solved

Ignoring parsimony....

I don't see any clash of religion .v. science in the case of medics.

A medic (a "pure" medic, no research interests etc) doesn't need to believe in evolution to do their job, IMO.

Don't get me wrong, I'd have the same amused bemused response to them as I would to anyone who doesn't believe in evolution, but I don't hold medics to particular standards over and above the general population in this regard.

I think us scientists make a lot of noises about the lofty ideals of science, and looking for evidence etc etc, but when push comes to shove you can work in a lab perfectly competently with a lot of weird stuff going on in your head, as long as you can isolate the correct protein at the end of the day. Or whatever.

I had the pleasure of sharing a bench for a couple of years with a guy who was not only deeply religious, but also a Holocaust denier, which was nice. Also not a big fan of gays. Or women, truth be told. But it didn't affect his scientific abilities.

Have any religious people here got a comment on the Epicurean paradox?

I am constantly amazed that people who make a career out of finding proof for things (which is essentially what science is) can cope with the need to have faith as part of their religion.

What RiceBurner said actually explains very well how I feel about it.

Apologies. I don't know how to link.

I too hate the idea that you need a religion to have a moral compass.

That is basically saying you're behaving because you're afraid of the consequences. I have no faith, and I don't steal/kill/lie because it causes pain and harm to other beings ...not because I'll get into trouble with a God. If anything, imposed morality is less moral because it's effectively under duress.
Ditto the importance of not fucking up the environment/making others lives a misery - this is all we have . This is it. It's not a dress rehearsal for heaven, there's no divine justice. This is our one chance - live well, don't harm others, leave the world better than you found it.

I'll be absolutely honest as well, however judgemental it is (and I know it's judgemental.) I think religion points to a certain lack of credulity. Sorry, I know that's a judgey thing to say.

But it just can't be true - there are 3000 gods in the Hindu pantheon alone. Then your abrahamic gods, and all the others people have believed in. They can't all be the one true faith. And if you have a faith, I assure you that all those fire God/sun God worshippers believed just as much as you do. So where am I going? The Muslim hell? Hel? The Christian hell? I'm going to need a lot of eternities....

Then how can a god be omnipotent and omniscient? The two are mutually exclusive. If you're all powerful, you can change anything. If you're all knowing, you can know everything that will ever happen. Oh, but if you know everything that can ever happen you can't truly have free will or change anything, so you're not omnipotent. ..it just goes round in circles.

What worries me most these days is that it's increasingly less ok to criticise religion. We absolutely have to have the right to mock any belief, or lack of belief. We must respect the person holding the belief - their freedom of thought is valuable, they must not be discriminated against on the basis of their religion. But we don't have to respect the belief itself. That's just an ideology and it can (and should) be challenged.

Religion must not get a free pass. We can't have debate being shut down with cries of 'x-o phobia!' Islam needs to be pulled up sharply on its treatment of women and gays. Ultra Orthodox Jews were rightly pulled up on the women school run /parking brouhaha in London earlier this year. Fundamentalist Christian preachers need to be pulled up on their attitudes to women and birth control in the USA... The list goes on. The ideologies need to be robustly challenged.

A certain credulity. Not lack of it ;)

YABVVVU and very narrow minded. Science cannot explain everything, there are many things we do not know about the world and the universe.

you can work in a lab perfectly competently with a lot of weird stuff going on in your head, as long as you can isolate the correct protein at the end of the day. Or whatever

I 100% agree. I have zero problem working alongside people I know to be religious (I do so daily). I've never observed any impact on their ability to do science well, sometimes exceedingly so.

But what I might question is whether they have the skeptical mind I think necessary to not just "do" science but to "be" science. Does the division I'm trying to articulate make sense?

I can "do" religion but I can't "be" religious. And the creationist who plots phylogenetic trees, is "doing", not "being".

That ^ sounds like a drunken student debate, looking back . I guess I am dividing technical competence from philosophical approach.

Science cannot explain everything

What do people mean when they write this? Are you saying that scientific knowledge is incomplete? That's obvious, it can never be complete. Or are you asserting the existence of observable phenomena that will always be beyond the realm of scientific explanation?

Yes it is maid, phenomonen happen that cannot be explained by science yes beyond the realm of science.

I think to narrow the "Christianity as a guide to living life" down to mere "morals" is a bit of a red herring and very limited in scope.

I don't think Christians are any more or less "moral" than non-Christians. Following Christ's teachings is not about being "good" - after all we are no longer in the nursery. Christians don't (or shouldn't) aim at being the school prefects of humanity. Christ's teachings make it clear this is not necessary and the "rewards" don't consist of getting sweeties for being good. In Christ's world the normal transactional basis of our world is suspended - sometimes those who have done the least work are rewarded just as much as those who have done the most, sometimes the unworthy receive the greatest gifts. This is not a "reward chart" situation

Being a christian to my mind isn't about being better than everyone else or more moral. It is about living your life as fully and wholly as you can, in a community with others doing likewise, with your mind and heart focussed on the right things to get you there. What those things are are for you to discover.

"Yes it is maid, phenomonen happen that cannot be explained by science yes beyond the realm of science."

What do "cannot" and "beyond the realm of" mean in this context?